Development and Learning in Organizations

Emerald Article: Creating opportunity from crisis: taking a strategic and

learning-focused perspective
Arif Ahmed

Article information:
To cite this document: Arif Ahmed, (2009),"Creating opportunity from crisis: taking a strategic and learning-focused
perspective", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 23 Iss: 5 pp. 4 - 6
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Feature article
Creating opportunity from crisis: taking a
strategic and learning-focused perspective
Arif Ahmed

his recession is likely to get worse before it gets better. Organizations have a choice:
they can ignore what is happening, or shed staff along knee-jerk, simplistic lines, or
they can accept times have changed and adopt new working practices. The third
option is patently the most sensible, but previous recessions indicate many companies will
instead adopt the second and generate redundancies across the board or weighted to
departments that are deemed cost rather than profit centres with functions such as Human
Resources (HR) and operational support disproportionately affected. Yet this ignores where
valuable knowledge and experience resides and runs the risk of leaving the company
poorly placed to tackle problems that arise, survive the recession, and maximise the
opportunity when the economy improves. If the purpose of HR and Learning and
Development (L&D) practitioners is to manage the organiszations most valuable resource
its people to deliver business success, then it has never been more important to speak up
in favour of truly strategic development and resourcing.

Arif Ahmed is Co-founder

and Director of ikomani,
London, UK.

Approached positively, organizations can do more than passively survive this recession;
they can re-evaluate their operations, pinpoint where they deliver value, and identify the
knowledge, skills and abilities required by the optimum number of people to deliver the
vision. Bold thinking can generate new opportunities for success, but this requires a central
function that really understands the business strengths and how effective HR policies can
make it reality.

HR and L&D can add value

HR and L&D need to be proactive in identifying solutions, rather than dealing with the
aftermath of financial decisions. An important strategic contribution can be made by
collaborating with operational managers to identify the individuals and teams that deliver
real value. Mapping the organizations activities and dependencies delivers a more accurate
guide for redundancy decisions. This approach highlights any superfluous staffing levels
better than thinking in purely departmental terms or arbitrary percentage reductions across
all functions. Moreover, ongoing employee evaluation programmes identify the contribution,
knowledge and skill-set of each individual. In concert, these activities can pinpoint who must
be retained, whether they remain in their current role or are redeployed to another that
matches their skills and knowledge. This is significantly more time- and cost-effective than
recruiting a new starter who will be lacking in company knowledge and without established
internal relationships.
As there is no such thing as organizational memory a collection of information and
experiences stored on internal databases is not the same thing each time a talented,
experienced employee leaves, valuable knowledge walks out the door. Experience creates

PAGE 4

DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS

VOL. 23 NO. 5 2009, pp. 4-6, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1477-7282

DOI 10.1108/14777280910982906

expertise in performance, evaluation and decision-making that is difficult to capture.

Instead, it is best shared among teams or with peers, person to person, long before
redundancy strikes. Without it, the organization will only have to re-learn the painful lessons
that had previously been mastered. Naturally, organizations with a learning strategy and
succession planning are best prepared if HR and L&D managers had not considered this
before, they should do so now.

Retain the knowledge if not the person

One way to retain knowledge is to negotiate with employees; they may consider working
flexibly for a lower salary or on a contract basis. Where staff are already contractors, it may
be possible to reduce costs by renegotiating day rates or changing the engagement model
by weighting payment to success-based bonuses. This increases the companys gross
profit margin in the short term while retaining essential knowledge and activity. Another
option is to share staff with partners or suppliers, either by having specific individuals float
between two or three different companies or by joining together to outsource common
functions in a cost-effective way. And dont forget that recognition and praise can be as
important as hard cash.

Establish communities of best practice

In contrast with previous recessions, the technology exists to support intra-organizational
and inter-company communities of best practice to help improve knowledge and
decision-making. This is different from knowledge management, which concentrates on
collating information; instead, it is more about pulling together people with the right
experience and knowledge to learn from one another. This has been leveraged most
successfully by sectors like healthcare, which by its very nature creates pockets of expertise
in certain hospitals or regions. Coming together to share best practice means clinical staff
(and therefore patients) are able to benefit from expert knowledge without overall workforces
having to increase.
Of course, commercial businesses may not wish to collaborate for competitive reasons but
similar, non-competing companies can adopt a similar approach to sharing best practice or
services. For example, the cost of creating e-learning is still fairly significant. By identifying
and securing the involvement of a number of non-competitive organizations with common
needs, it is possible to share both the intellectual property and cost. Organizations can also
encourage employees to become involved more closely with customers and stakeholders to
increase collaboration, gain a better understanding of how the supply chain operates and
make their offering more effective.

Dont stop learning think longer-term

It is possible to increase organizational knowledge during a recession; HR managers just
need to be creative. They can change the methods of delivery replacing classroom
training with lower cost alternatives, such as mentoring, e-learning or blended learning as
long as the content matches the delivery mechanism. For example, it is easy to switch
standard, repetitive learning such as induction training from classroom to e-learning. In
commissioning new e-learning, the organization should work with a provider that adopts a
modular approach, generating content that can be reused or repurposed and bringing
efficiencies in the longer term. Electronic performance support systems can deliver
bite-sized e-learning, embedded into software-based systems or processes. This is a fairly

HR needs to go back to basics, focusing on the fundamentals

and moving to integrate learning into the broader
management strategy.

VOL. 23 NO. 5 2009 DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS PAGE 5

ikonami check list

B
B

Dont blindly reduce headcount without considering the strategic impact.

Build consensus across the whole management team and demonstrate the real value of what
youre trying to do.
Examine the companys cash position, strategy, markets and competitors and then prioritise
activity.

Leverage past knowledge management and succession planning programmes.

Measure and align learning to help the organization deliver results.

Be creative about resourcing, commissioning and delivery methods.

Remember the importance of soft skills, too delivering bad news requires tact.

Investigate independent or government-sponsored communities of best practice in your sector.

Improve communications and informal learning through intranets and social networking.

Consider what can be outsourced.

recent development but may turn out to be the most efficient way of learning as the user
completes relevant modules while they are actually performing their job.

Grab this opportunity

Keywords:
Human resource
management,
Learning,
Recession,
Training,
Resources,
Public sector organizations

HR needs to go back to basics, focusing on the fundamentals and moving to integrate

learning into the broader management strategy (see Box 1). With money tight, decisions
might need to be made as to whether to fund operational development to deliver immediate
impact to the bottom line or longer term talent management programmes. The recession is a
great opportunity for organizational learning if employees can deliver business success
now that bodes well for the future, but it is important to capture the learning and lessons. HR
and L&D managers must demonstrate the contribution they can make and earn their place at
the strategic planning table.

Corresponding author
Arif Ahmed can be contacted at: arif@ikonami.com

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PAGE 6 DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS VOL. 23 NO. 5 2009